


Help Me, Tom

by bunnystealsyourcarrots



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Dark, Alternate Universe - Space, Angst, Dark, F/M, Holographic smut, Smut, The most alternative of universes because it's legit in space, Thriller, anti gravity smut, light Violence, tomione - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-31
Updated: 2019-09-12
Packaged: 2020-10-04 06:38:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20466665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bunnystealsyourcarrots/pseuds/bunnystealsyourcarrots
Summary: At the end of a catastrophic accident in space, there's her and him- and something else watching.





	1. Prologue

It’s vibrations on her skin.

The crash of her teeth together.

The roar of burning fuel in her ears.

The end of everything she knows into a terrifying pinprick when Hermione Granger’s vision collapses from the front to the periphery. The feel of a space medic plunging into the center of endless black. A minute. A second. A lifetime of quiet nothing in her foreseeable future before a cold hard slap across her face brings her back to presently flashing red lights and her commander’s shouts.

“Pull yourself together, Granger!”


	2. Chapter 2

**Six Months Before Diadem 1’s Launch**

At her first mission briefing, Hermione Granger arrived five minutes before anyone else.

A lifetime of self-inflicted over punctuality guiding her actions to that grand moment that she sunk her pencil skirt-covered rear into a Kennedy Space Center approved seat at the front of the room. The enormity of the meeting ahead breathed in for a moment. The countless ways her life would change flipping through her thoughts before she relaxed and retrieved a new pen out of her brand new satchel. A calming exhale parting her lips. The urge to pinch herself resisted, but laughter at the door jerked her gaze towards the couple in their late forties walking in.

An athletic woman with close-cropped sandy-colored hair and a round face impishly grinned up at her slim and kind-eyed companion. 

“Mmm, I can’t wait for my next wet wipe bath!”

“It’s all fun and games to you now, myshka,” the man quipped, the end of his beaky nose scrunching in distaste, and he pushed his horn-rimmed glasses up to the bridge, “but you won’t be laughing when I’m not jumping to kiss your chemically-scented shoulder.”

“Hmm, that’s sounds familiar, but what month did you cave on before?”

“One,” he grumbled, dramatically dropping into a chair in the back row beside the woman who triumphantly bounced her shoulders. “But that doesn’t mean I’m looking forward to it!”

_ Myshka. Mouseling? _

_ Ah, Dr. Alice and Major Frank Longbottom. _

_ Four-time ISS astronauts, eight months on their last visit. _

A series of thrills shot up Hermione’s spine as she spun through a mental Rolodex full of all their achievements. The many feathers in their caps adding up to enviable careers as a flight surgeon and spacecraft pilot even before they’d met in orbit and unexpectedly conceived the first fetus in zero gravity. A near-disaster transformed into a scientific triumph after a healthy birth. 

The first quantifiable sign that humans could go further into the unknown with offspring that thrived, and to keep from gushing, an awkwardly awed Hermione turned away without introducing herself. 

A silent reminder to keep her cool. A relaxing of her fingers on her pen. However, her attention swiftly snapped back to tense when the last three arrivals entered mid-conversation. Their range of ages between twenty-nine and sixty helping Hermione to sort them into flight engineer Theo Nott, mission commander Tom Riddle, and navigator and chemist Dr. Abraxas Malfoy.

“The data is clear,” Dr. Malfoy insisted, his grey mustache emphatically twitching as the tallest of the three men shook his head.

“The data is biased.”

“I think you’re biased about a bias.”

“Ah, there goes another novel opinion of yours,” Tom countered to Dr. Malfoy, continuing his stride towards the podium at the front of the room as the other two took their seats, rolling his sleeves to the elbow, “and I do not look forward to hearing more later.”

A gruff reply with a curse word earned a wink from the mission commander.

A laugh from Theo beside her, and Hermione couldn’t help but crack a smile. He had a sunny laugh. The kind of laugh that warmed you up on a cold day. An infectious laugh that stole larger ones from you after you’d stubbornly promised to stay sullen after a slight, and she could already picture him wrangling plenty out of her over the next year and a half. 

_ A year and a half in space. _

“Good afternoon everyone,” Tom interrupted Hermione’s train of gobsmacked thoughts, his muscular forearms resting on the podium, “it’s great to be here, and even better to say that the lithium-ion batteries are up and running again on the space station thanks to our friends from China.”

A round of claps circled the room.

“This means that we now have a template for how to fix that particular issue if it comes up on our mission,” he continued, his deep voice dipping into playful though his lips didn’t match, “and I don’t have to explain to you massively clever folks that solidly knowing anything on this particular flight is a gift that we won’t often receive.” 

A drop of Hermione’s mood hit the bottom of her belly.

A nagging, rational fear coming over her for what was to come. The worst-case scenarios slowly unfurling in her mind, but her commander evenly pivoted into clicking on a video: a detailed projection filling the wall behind him. A mock-up of their shuttle slowly twisting to reveal every nook and cranny that Hermione had diligently studied over until she recognized the metallic curves as if they were the lines on her palm. Her runaway pulse slowed. A return to calm when presented with facts, and pure fascination washed over her.

_ There’s your new home. _

______________________

By age sixteen, Hermione Granger entered college. At twenty-four, the persistent prodigy completed her biology doctorate. At twenty-seven, she finished astronaut candidate training, and thanks to her breakthrough study on a strain of algae with all the nutrients humans needed to eat, she found herself at age twenty-eight on a mission to Mars without previously logged space-time. 

In her day to day life, Hermione never hesitated to bravely go forward towards her goals.

If she had to risk her reputation to learn something, she would. The time for hesitance not on her watch when a fresh idea about how to pick away at the root of a problem came to her and the joke among her closest friends was that she'd clearly magically bound the soul of an undaunted lion between her small breasts. The option of looking silly, or less than fiercely determined, always losing out to the chance of discovering an unknown answer to something as soon as possible, but Hermione remained uncharacteristically reserved that afternoon.

How odd that the reliably fearless female resisted raising her hand during the mission briefing. Her teacher's pet proclivities stifled down. A denial of her core instinct to inquire and inquire and inquire carried all the way to the end, and in her opinion, she'd probably lost the opportunity to shine as the brightest copper penny in the room by refusing to appear insufferably eager in front of a room full of space-seasoned strangers. But the stakes that day were too high for any other option. 

The urge to speak her mind diverted to twisting her stomach into frustrated knots, and she had the man upfront to blame. 

“If that’s all the questions for today,” he breezily said, clicking off the projector, “I’ll see y’all back in two weeks.”

The sound of chair bottoms sliding on tile filled the room, but Hermione stayed put. The grinding of her molars hidden though she nodded politely back at Theo’s goodbye wave. A few seconds at most before the rest of the crew exited the room, and the last one lingering behind was the commander nonchalantly unrolling the sleeves of his white dress shirt in preparation to leave.

Hermione stood up.

“Can I have a word with you?”

He rubbed his hand against his clean-shaven jaw. A too-long pause for a simple question. The most condescending indecision that only further riled up Hermione into infinitesimally flaring her nostrils before he flicked his fingers towards the door. 

“Let’s walk and talk.”

She followed him.

The clicks of her heel points quickening down the hall.

The opportunity to meaningfully engage made exceedingly difficult in a narrow, winding passage, but once they hit the glossy linoleum in the lobby, Hermione met his stride. "Commander Riddle," she confidently spoke up, the sounds of sectioned off tourists dwindling behind them, "I wanted to ask why you didn't introduce me to the team today."

"I guess I foolishly believed that the group email announcing your role sufficed," he crisply replied, not bothering to glance over. "Do you require a red carpet rollout?"

"No."

"Do you have any other questions pertaining to the mission?"

"Not exactly-"

"Then why are you slowing me down on my way to mission control?"

The oddest reaction to laugh hit Hermione.

How strange to feel like she'd suddenly been sucked back into school with a teacher who loathed her combining with an arrogant bully. The Hermione from her past sure to excuse herself with a soft apology after his rebuke, a sign of submission to wrestle back some peace between them, but as an adult who knew her worth, she squared her shoulders.

"I'm here,” she smoothly answered, exhaling out her nerves, “because I don't want to stay continually on the wrong foot with you." 

"Granger, we're fine," he insisted, stopping in front of a room that she didn’t have clearance to enter. "If your only problem is that I’m the only one failing to fall at your feet at NASA, you'll just have to accept that. I can't change your lack of experience or my desire for different outcomes, but rest assured, the team will learn everything they need to know about you within the next couple months."

His dark gray eyes settled on her as if she were a pesky bug that he couldn't yet swat away. 

A vein over his temple straining against his smooth, pale skin.

A breath snagging in the back of her throat as his impatient hostility felt horrifically undeserved to Hermione, and she hated feeling small around him again. It wasn't like her to hold her tongue around a sharper one. To not stand up for herself, but she obediently nodded her head in understanding when he slid his key card into the door lock. The conversation brought to an abrupt end. His back to her within a second, but she reminded herself that her accomplishments had rightfully earned her an invite to the prestigious program. That he could hate her all he wanted, and that still wouldn't change the outcome that she would terraform Mars. 

He was right. 

He didn't have to fawn over her, and she didn’t have to let his obstinance affect her.

She'd trained, and learned, and applied herself. 

The opinion of one man with a controlling god complex unable to shift the tides in his favor after she'd already shown people above him all they needed to know to hoist her name above a thousand other talented candidates vying for a spot on a team. Like it or not, the job on his shuttle was hers. Her impressive stats speaking loudly enough for her, and why shouldn't she stand in front of him as an equal who'd run the same gauntlet that he once did?

Why shouldn't she brush off his annoyance when soon enough he'd tire of continuously slapping away the helping hand of someone who would literally feed a new society? Their relationship transforming from combative to cooperative out of necessity in anti-gravity, and all of these same thoughts had already been repeating in a loop in Hermione’s head since the week earlier when the sound of her hissed name first hit her ears before she'd reached her scheduled meeting with NASA administrator Albus Dumbledore. 

“Hermione Granger?”

“Tom, you need to cool off-”

“No! What I _ need _ is to convince you to replace that incompetent child who’s going to get us all killed.”

“Come now, Theo Nott is barely older.”

“But he’s been to the ISS before!”

The words inexperienced, untested, and dangerously green followed the first round of slander against her. The deep-voiced passionate speech carrying out into the hallway, and Hermione cringed. She hadn't expected to defend herself. This was supposed to be a taking home a thick policy binder kind of meeting, but even if she had a warning, how could she have ever prepared herself for such a distractingly exquisite face slinging unimpressed at her once she braved entering the room?

The look on his face was jarring. 

A disturbingly familiar contempt that snapped Hermione back into feelings of inferiority and helplessness.

The sound of her confused begging in the past echoing in her head before she’d been pushed down the stairs at fifteen as others laughed until she cracked at the bottom, and Hermione flinched in the present.

_ It’s not him. _

A hard swallow helped Hermione shake off the cold breath on the back of her neck from the ghosts of her past, and she focused on this entirely different handsome man presently glaring at her with his arms crossed over his chest. She took in his square jaw clenched tight with high cheekbones further up. His lashes dark and thick. His scowling lips so pink and full that words of praise for them could fill up a schoolgirl’s journal. The most attractively tall and fit force of nature imaginable who hid his damage behind a perfectly tailored dress shirt and pressed trousers and Hermione decided that he was someone who could make a taken woman take a double look after passing him on the street.

A man who tortured your thoughts hours later, but the illusion of an ideal specimen shattered when she met his eyes.

"If that’s her, I’m doubling down,“ Tom gestured at Hermione, blew out an exasperated exhale before shifting his ire back to his superior. “If you want it, fine, I'll even take on Lovegood or Greyback now. I mean, who cares if they’re certifiable pains in the ass if they’ve logged two years between them, and either one could lift a damn robotic arm.”

“Tom, that’s out of line-”

“Be sensible, Albus!”

“I’m sorry, Hermione-”

At last, the first threads of shock loosened their hold on her tongue, and Hermione lifted a hand to cut off Albus’s apology. “No need, sir,” she cleared her throat, forcing her tone to keep civil, “I can empathize with Commander Riddle’s reluctance. I understand where he's coming from, the urge to protect his crew, but I haven’t taken offense because it's not worth the energy to argue with him."

"You're right," Tom flatly replied. "Why should I compare their track records to yours when you have none?"

"Do you only want lettuce and tomatoes for ten years?" Hermione shot back, crossing the room to split the icy void between them. "Is a lack of diverse nutrients for the future of humanity what you're angling for here? Because if you put either one of those talented botanists on your crew, that's still all they'll be able to deliver."

"At least I have proof that they _ can _ grow something in space- that they won't collapse into hysterics after they lose gravity and their spines scream out in pain for months."

“I can handle pain.”

“You don’t know what you can handle yet, and that’s the problem.”

At the end of her patience, Hermione quickly admitted in an even tone, “In high school, I was attacked. I broke several ribs, shattered bones in my right leg, and the muscle in my arm flapped in the wind. I know pain, sir. I've been battered and counted out before with the jagged scars to prove it, and I’ve since run three marathons after a doctor told me that the excruciating torture I pushed through would have made most people crack." 

She took a breath, licked her lips. 

"Right now," she continued, forgetting that anyone else watched them, "you're of the opinion that I'm a weak neophyte. It's okay, I'm not naive enough to hope to cure you of that distrust today, but that doesn't change me passing the simulations for all known space emergencies without any dangerous blood pressure spikes, or that I scored higher on my endurance runs than Theo Nott. So, I can assure you, Commander Riddle, that I’ll be steady as a rock as long as you can fly us around the big ones.

“In theory,” he stressed, unmoved, “In theory, you’ll be steady.”

“Yes, in theory, and I can’t wait to do what I always do by proving my theory's right.”

At the end of the tense discussion, Albus refused to allow to Tom depart the room without shaking Hermione’s hand. An unconvincing show of welcome and moving onward together. A warning glare of a grudge shining in his slate-colored eyes, but he didn’t raise his voice when next they met, and he had no choice but to assign her to a locker.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh heeeey,
> 
> I hoped you enjoyed the first chapter, and I'd love to know what you thought! I know there was some getting to know you (and getting to hate you) going on here, and NASA floor descriptions, and if you're now wondering when shit will hit the fan---it's the next chapter.
> 
> -Bun


	3. Chapter 3

**A Week Before Diadem 1’s Launch**

At a long metal table, Hermione, Alice, and Frank Longbottom finished up sampling the tweaked changes to the astronaut menus along with twelve food scientists looking on curiously at every chew. A shiny pouch from them pushed across the massive table for a bite or two. A checkmark applied to paper, and Hermione dropped her jaw in surprise after a mouthful of orange and chocolate pudding.

“Wow, yeah, gimme a bunch of those.”

“How does your fake steak compare to this?” Alice unsealed a pouch of steaming chicken tetrazzini. “Is it more texturally Salsbury or Ribeye?” 

“Oh yes, please, dish,” Frank Longbottom chimed in, balling his fist under his chin for an unconvincingly dignified pose as he tentatively sipped a freshly boiled mocha latte, “does your bacteria burger taste as it sounds?”

Hermione pressed her lips together, clamping down on a giggle. 

“The microbes I work with make meat that tastes like meat,” she shakily squeaked, “and it’s pretty good and even better with A1.”

“So it’s meat that’s decent enough if you cover it in a strong sauce?” Alice cooed, sliding a freshly filled spoon into her mouth. “Can’t wait!”

Frank ticked off the coffee option with a plus sign on his menu.

“Isn’t it wild that after all these years where we’ve spent hours wiping down the spaceships with wet wipes to get rid of bacteria, now you’re going to make us eat it.”

“To be fair, we’re only eating it on Mars,” Hermione quipped, opening up a macaroni pouch to insert a hot water tube into it. “I’m not forcing you to eat spaceship bacteria or sweat-based salmon.”

Alice cackled, her feet tapping on the ground. “That is a ridiculous conversational point, and I love it because it’s true!”

In the months since Hermione joined the team, the Longbottoms had taken her under their comforting wings as if they were birds of the same feather. A single random happy hour invite from Frank after a briefing leading to a standing Friday tradition between them- a friendship quickly formed that felt years older. The most promising sign that- despite her commander’s continual ill opinion of her- Hermione's time in space wouldn’t necessarily be filled with tense friction every second. At least two people having her back, and oh how she'd desperately treasured looking forward to anything work-related since Tom Riddle remained frosty, aloof and unimpressed. 

For not the first time that afternoon, Hermione looked over with heaps of fondness towards the older couple. 

The squeeze of Frank’s knee under the table by Alice not missed by her. 

“Alice, behave,” he’d whispered, squeezing his wife’s knee back in reproach, and Hermione nearly choked on her pudding when Alice whispered something that suspiciously sounded like the word never.

For all their experiences and brilliance, they reminded Hermione of a young couple stuck perpetually in puppy love. They’d wedge silly taunts between excuses to touch each other. They'd hold hands instead of grudges, and for Hermione, it was the best kind of strange to feel the warmth of clear adoration radiating from folks who'd been together for over twenty years. It made her feel hopeful about her future. How easy they made it look to be endlessly in love. How also presently refreshing to not constantly feel like a third wheel mucking up a smooth ride around them because if ever the conversation veered too closely into intimate, they'd seamlessly pivot to asking questions about her school. Her projects. Her parents and friends and non-existent love life. 

Their most frequent lament of why wasn’t Hermione younger so they could set her up with their son. Their charming, friendly, intelligent, gorgeous outer-space-made offspring who was "technically" already married with a baby. 

“Oh, think of the Christmases,” Alice drawled, checking a no to pea soup,” once we get back, we can serve your bacteria steak at Christmas, and Neville can try it!”

Hermione’s mouth quirked to the side. “Hmm, I don’t know if calling it bacteria steak is a selling point.”

“I’m sure he’ll get a kick out of whatever you call it- and you too!”

“Uh-huh, and how do you think Pansy will feel about Neville's fawning?” Hermione pressed, goading with a grin.

Alice playfully pouted. “Oh, her again.”

“Yes, _her,_ the beautiful mother of your grandchild.”

“I’ll say this about Neville,” Frank spoke up before Alice could roll her eyes, his speech slow but earnest. “He’s bright and courageous, and only a man with a heart of gold could have our first grandchild with that harpy of a wife of his. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, that it’s a damn near miracle, but thankfully their baby is clever and sweet, and I’m excited as heck to create something better outside of Earth for him. For all of them.”

Alice begrudgingly smiled. “Pansy has gotten better over the years.”

Frank squinted an eye, flashing a grin. “The bar was quite low.”

_______________________

A breath couldn’t pass Hermione’s lungs when her finger circled the rubber seal.

The firmest push down until the case clicked.

A count of one, two, three, four more clicks going clockwise in precise order until the vials of bacteria inside the plastic box were safely contained with an air-tight promise, and only then did Hermione exhale. A hit of euphoric relief tugging the corners of her lips up. The hardest part of her routine over, but the walls continued rumbling around her. The deafening wailing alarms joining in until her ears threatened to bleed, and flashing ruby lights began pulsing above her. The danger never more clear and present- the heart inside her chest easily forgiven for stalling- but neither it nor Hermione skipped a beat until she finished calmly storing her responsibility inside a cushioned metal drawer. 

“There we are,” she murmured, gently plucked the earbuds from her ears after completing her task. “For the tenth time tonight.”

She pushed her goggles off her eyes and onto her forehead, blew out a heavy breath inside the simulation room.

The walls silenced again around her. The intense visuals vanished with only a plain tiled room with cushioned floors and a chair remaining beneath her, her harness straps high on her thighs and she used a pulley rope to carefully lower her toes to balance on the seat. The worst-case scenario drill again passed by Hermione with flying colors for only the hundredth time in four months, and after boosting her confidence, she exited the room for a hard sleep. The front of her grey tank top soaked with sweat. Her black cargo pants unbuttoned. Her dark curls misty and haphazardly pulled into a low loose bun when Tom Riddle stopped a foot away from her in the locker room. 

“You’re here late.”

Hermione dropped her hand. “I could say the same about you.”

“Not by my design, that’s for sure.“ Tom sighed, his eyes scanning down Hermione’s figure before settling on something bothering him. A flick of his liquid metal-colored eyes back up to hers, and he decisively took a step forward to reach beside her. A drawer pulled out of a high shelf as Hermione anxiously held her breath, his shoulder brushing hers, and he retrieved a small square package that he tore open. “A navigational error popped up this morning, and I got called in to look over the code.”

He slipped out the alcohol wipe, knocked Hermione off guard when he dabbed at the sticky electrode residue that she hadn’t noticed on the inside of her elbow. His strokes light. The combination of wet and cold sharp on her skin.

The first time they’d touched, and Hermione’s front teeth unconsciously skimmed her bottom lip.

Up close and quiet, he truly was maddeningly perfect.

The kind of natural beauty who could easily draw her in closer to breath him in if only she wasn’t acutely aware of his hidden thorny nature, and how much he seemed to thrill in cutting into her. 

A little stab here and there until she doubted if she’d ever feel whole again, and to clear the air, and him out of her wants and needs, she swallowed. “I'm surprised that a team of the brightest software engineers in the world couldn't handle a problem like that on their own without roping you in on the night before your big day.”

At once, Tom’s care ceased.

He lifted the wipe off her, tossed everything into the trash. 

“You know, for someone who always looks so desperate to be called on in class, I’m surprised you didn’t do your homework on me.” 

“I looked up more than enough about you,” Hermione retorted, jolted into indignation, “and I’m not _ desperate _ to be called on.”

Tom hummed, unconvinced. The locker next to her opened with metallic click before he peeled his t-shirt off. His eyes catching hers widening when he absently rubbed a sore chest muscle. That streaking blush staining her cheeks into shamed rosy after he’d assaulted her view with unexpected abs, sharp v lines and a thin trail of dark hair beneath his navel. The sum of his parts judged and openly appraised as best in show before she'd remembered to glance away for fuck’s sake, and only the bang of metal could encourage her to look back. 

A forest green herringbone sweater mercifully covering him up this time around, and he pushed a hand through his tousled hair. 

“Is that right? You looked up more than enough about me?” he chipperly asked, his tone dripping condescension. “So you did know that I’m the one who a year ago integrated the newest navigational system with voice commands, and you’re just being needlessly obtuse?” 

“Oh, I-I,” Hermione stammered. “I guess I forgot-”

“Ahh,” Tom cut her off, patronizing her with a slight cock of his head. “Well, let’s hope that’s the only important thing you forget this week.”

“I might forget needless ego-boosting facts about you, sir,” Hermione snapped, a hand on her hip, “but you don't have to worry about me forgetting anything of actual importance relating to the mission.”

Tom shrugged, snidely laughed on his way out. “Says the girl obsessively running basic simulations on the night before her departure.” 

____________________________

It’s a toss in her bed.

A soft sigh against her pillow.

The arch of her back when her tongue meets her lip, and she groans.

A second more of hesitation and feeling foolish before she snatched the phone off her bedside table to fire off a text message at ten pm on the night before her launch. The next whole ridiculously long minute drifting by painfully slow before a ding announced the answer to her question, and she rolled onto her side. For approximately five seconds afterward, Hermione beat herself up for freaking out and acting up, but she forgave herself after reading the reply with its out of place smiley face emoji with tongue out. 

**From: Alice **

**Hon, you’re dwelling on the morbid too much, but if the glass in your helmet cracks and you panic, I promise that you’ll be a normal human being panicking over something reasonable. It’s okay to lose your shit for a minute. And as long as you patch it up, and the pressure on the inside is around 30%, you won’t suffer an embolism plus blown out eyes that make a nasty splattering mess inside your ten million dollar suit. **

Hermione texted out a thanks, but her phone dinging again cut her off. 

**From: Alice**

**Also, how are you able to type right now???? I told you to go find some handsome stud to bang out your night before nerves! Did you not take my wise, sage advice?**

Hermione snorted, rolled her face into her pillow to smother a laugh.

**To: Alice**

**No, clearly not. **

A couple of minutes ticked by without any further chastizing, and Hermione resigned herself to aim for sleep with a more relaxed mind frame. The worst of her panic settled down anyway. However, the next time the phone went off, it stole a wheezing, incredulous noise out of Hermione.

**From: Alice**

**Do you want me to send Neville over? I can tell him that his services are needed for a matter of National importance. **

A soft chuckle fell from Hermione’s lips, and she set her phone down for good. A flop onto her back in the bed, one leg splayed out to the side. The ridiculousness of the conversation beating out her nerves until she felt more like herself, but her toes curled under the sheets.

She had considered it.

A last lay to last her eighteen months.

A pleasant goodbye to take the edge off that didn’t involve a never-met-but-very-taken Neville Longbottom, but hitting up an ex hadn’t appealed to her. The act of firing up the dating app on her phone an even less attractive option after the last time when she'd mentioned that she worked for NASA and the oaf on the other end asked if she was in the gift shop. 

No, Hermione didn’t want to enjoy her big bang with someone good in theory but sloppy in execution.

What she wanted was someone who knew what they were doing. 

A man who could at least meet her in the middle intellectually.

A mature hand that could mine the peaks and valleys of her body with expert pleasure and pressure, but until she found her next mistake, her own hand could do. A finger circling her clit never letting her down. The electric thrill of touch and touch and touch soon straining her breath into cut-up needy whimpers as her hips pitched up to meet her fantasies of being used by someone who got off on it, and her cunt clenched. 

The wet, obscene sounds soaking the air.

The slickest back and forth building up when she went knuckle deep into euphoria. 

The wrongness of every thrusting curl making it hotter for her, her skin beading with sweat. The first of many moans finally breaking through when she didn’t feel so alone anymore, and how could she not? How could she possibly feel overlooked when his rough hands were on her, his mean mouth parted to say her name? The burn of his gaze on her body, those irises the color of ice on a mountain, and when she gushed it was Tom who set off a trembling avalanche.

A hateful hand fuck. 

**________________________**

**Diadem 1’s Launch Day**

At four hours before departure, Hermione tugged her neoprene suit over her skin. The tension over her chest oppressive but familiar. The hours of practice in the restrictive material plus added weight helping her to keep feeling even-keeled versus triggering fight or flight, and when she glanced over at Theo in the hallway, it was with clear eyes and giddy butterflies in her belly. 

“You good?” He asked, eyebrows raised “You look good."

“Yeah,” Hermione bit her lip, nodded her head, “I am good.”

_ You look good too. _

To the benefit of anybody with sight, Theo hadn’t yet pulled the hood down on his suit, and above playful meadow green eyes, he looked clean cut. A fresh trim shearing off everything on the sides with his curls left shorter than before up top. A touch of militaristic order if not for the dark locks in the front that grazed his thick eyebrows when he turned his head to drop Hermione a comforting grin. The perfect picture of All-American boy next door welcoming her to space and Hermione ran out of room in her head for overthinking.

He relaxed her.

A near-stranger, but how could she fret over the future when he looked like he couldn’t wait for the challenge?

“It’s amazing, right?”

Hermione nodded.

At ten am, they’d already run through checklists.

They’d hugged their families.

They’d dug their toes into their boots to feel gravity keeping them in place for one of the final times for over a year and a half. A grounding for a flight crew. A last hurrah with Earth’s physics rules and Hermione discovered that she couldn’t wait to experience life on the other side.

“Do your two friends live close?” she asked, speaking to keep from shrieking out her excitement like a goofy fool. “I heard the guys teasing each other about who got to drive home now that NASA stole their navigator.” 

“They live about as close as I could get them,” Theo trailed off, slowly winked “...in that we all share a room.”

“Oh,” Hermione cheerily replied, her eyes widening a fraction later. “Ohhh.”

“Yep, that’s some of the noises that come out of the room,” Theo teased, cracking up when a pink-cheeked Hermione smacked his shoulder, but before she could sling back some banter, Tom approached.

“Can I steal you for a minute?”

At the risk of blushing so hard around him that he might magically guess that she’d indulged in some perverted playtime with him in a guest-starring role, Hermione had gone out of her way that morning to avoid private conversation with her commander. A clipped answer to him offered at the end of breakfast earlier, but she obediently followed him further down the hall. The sooner she relaxed around him, the better.

“How are you feeling this morning?” he asked, coming to a stop when no one else could pick up their echo.

A look of concern from Tom wore down Hermione’s defensive stance. “Um," she slowly smiled, casually resting her shoulder on the wall, "I’m shockingly wonderful. My microbes and algae are stored and ready to go, and I'm ready too.”

Tom’s eyebrows puckered closer. 

“You’re not afraid?”

“No, are you?”

“I am,” he blew out an exhale, rubbed a hand over his mouth to pushed off his cheek. “I’m in charge of a six-month flight, a six-month set-up on a currently inhospitable planet, and a six-month flight back that’s costing somewhere in the neighborhood of nine hundred million dollars and then some.”

“That scares you?” Hermione blinked up at him, her gaze softening, “Oh, you seem so calm and sure of yourself. I’m sure that it’ll go smoothly with all your thorough preparations and system coding-”

Tom held up his hand. “Granger, I’m not scared about my lack of preparations. I’m terrified about yours compromising the mission.”

The air kicked out of her chest.

The sense of foolishness crawling under her skin once she realized how much she’d hoped for even the tiniest fraction of respect from him after all the months of playing nicely under his thumb.

A catcall on the street wouldn’t rile her up. An honest criticism from her peers couldn’t make her crumble. A harsh review from a respected journal couldn’t break her either, but a gaslight attempt got her going flaming hot under the collar. To have to stand in front of someone who had the nerve to try to make her doubt her self-awareness made her see red. The walls dripping with rubies and blood and cut muscle if he thought he could convince her that she was the one here suffering from feelings of delusional grandeur which was precisely what Tom suggested.

She shot her gaze up to the ceiling, sucked in a calming breath.

“I see.”

“I reckon it’s embarrassing to consider it,” he placed a hand on her arm, his tone spitefully even in Hermione's ears when her stomach violently churned, “but we don't have to follow through on this farce. In two months, you could travel on the smaller scheduled shuttle to the International Space Station. You’ll earn experience, confront your worst fears. We can delay our mission until your comfortable and we'll sell the media on some excuse of an unexpected repair issue.”

The false extension an olive branch never felt more like a slap to the face, and Hermione flinched.

“I am comfortable.”

“Don't let your bruised ego cloud better judgment-”

“I could suggest the same thing to you, Commander,” Hermione freed her arm from his touch, all signs of subservience snipped away, and it was good riddance if her previous patience with his prejudice hadn’t won her any credibility with him. “Theo Nott trusts me on this flight, Alice and Frank Longbottom trust me on this flight, my trainers trust me completely on this flight, and the head of NASA suggested me for this flight after the findings of a committee who thoroughly vetted my application from hundreds of others including those with spacewalk times," she rattled off. "The very same committee who once chose you as an option. And if you add that all up, the sum of everyone's experience has over a hundred years on yours. But _you_ refuse to compare your judgment. Who is the one out of touch here?”

She expected him to lash out at her for dressing him down. She could picture his low opinion of her wrapping its fingers around her neck, a slow, savoring squeeze until she dropped to her knees in front of him and whimpered for his forgiveness, but Tom stepped back. The sound of his stiff gloves curling into fists at his sides. 

A nasty gleam in his eyes before an exhausted head shake.

“I want you to remember that when everything goes to hell that I tried to give you a way out.”

______________________

In the last three hours before taking off, the crew touched nearly knee to knee on the launch pad. The last-minute preparations between mission control, the ground crew, and the mission commander out of everyone else’s hands. The taming of internal butterflies the hardest job that Hermione could expect to deal with that morning, but when Tom stopped Alice, Frank, and Theo in the corridor in front of her before entering the shuttle, Hermione could only feel lead in her belly.

A cold sinking dread.

A growing suspicion that, as a last restort, Tom wasn't beyond influencing the team into insisting Hermione stay behind as she stood frozen in place out of hearing range. The decision ripped out of her hands if her crew questioned their faith in her. The higher-ups having no other option but to bow to those concerns once voiced, but the worry plummeted when the Longbottom’s erupted into action. Their gestures increased from impassioned to irritated. Their spirited disagreement to whatever Tom suggested made loud and clear even as Theo stared at his boots with a disturbed frown and Hermione let out a relieved sound.

_ Oh, thank God. _

____________________________

“We wish you good luck and godspeed.”

By Tom’s design, Hermione had entered the shuttle last.

A final chance to back out, no doubt, but Hermione enthusiastically attached the straps that dug into her shoulders, stomach, and thighs as mission control said goodbye.

The beginning to the end of everything she knew starting when her helmet bubble clicked in place.

The sound of her breathing impossibly loud in her ears even before the engines drowned out all other noise outside of their oppressive roar and the shuttle pitched. The acceleration of twenty-six times the speed of light shoved into minutes rocking their million-dollar tin can, and Hermione closed her eyes. A train. An earthquake. The fiercest, catastrophic sounds in the world combined around her when the engines kicked off the launch pad, and the restraints unleashed pinpricks of pain from Hermione’s thighs to up her spinal column. The rocket boosters separating when her legs throbbed with unexpected fury, but Hermione fell into black before her body slammed into her seat from three G’s.

The atmosphere lost without her knowledge.

A once in a lifetime out of this world view passing her by.

A click of her helmet bringing her back to Earth when she hovered miles above it, her body floating under her straps, and she looked over to Tom with fluttering lashes. The first words she’d hear from him, from anyone, in space. 

The first smug and validated scowl she’d see.

“You passed out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I jumped the gun on saying that shit hit the fan this chapter. I know. I know. BUT, it's only because the moment turned out to fit better in the next chapter, and I hope that you enjoyed this long run up in the meantime to Tomione in space...and angry at each other :)
> 
> -Bunny


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